Meet the fugu, aka Takifugu rubripes, a fish with the
thick-lipped, thuggish face of a Chicago gangster. Fugu, or
puffer fish, as it is commonly known, is a delicacy in Japan.
It can also be deadly. Those who eat the liver, ovaries, gonads, intes
tines, or skin swallow tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin that jams the
flow of sodium ions into nerve cells and stops nerve impulses dead in
their tracks. They run the risk of suffering the fate of the famous Kabuki
actor Mitsugoro Bando, who in 1975 spent a night feasting on fugu liver
because he enjoyed the pleasant tingling it created on his tongue and
lips. The tingling was followed by paralysis of his arms and legs, difficulty
breathing, then, eight hours later-death. There is no known antidote.
Fortunately, these days the making of a fugu chef is a carefully con
trolled and licensed enterprise. Aspiring chefs who would spend their
days in the kitchen skinning and shaving the fugu into tissue-thin slices
for sashimi (at $500 a plate) must take an exam: 20 minutes to dissect
the fish into edible and inedible pieces, label the parts with plastic tags
(red for toxic, black for edible), and prepare an artful arrangement. Of
the 900 hopefuls who took last year's exam, 63 percent passed.
The source of the fugu's poison is a subject of debate. Tamao Noguchi,
a researcher at Nagasaki University, believes the secret lies in the fugu's
diet. Puffer fish, he explains, ingest toxins from small organisms
mollusks, worms, or shellfish-that have in turn ingested a toxic bac
terium known as vibrio. In experiments, Noguchi has raised fugu in
cages, controlled their diet, and produced toxin-free fish.
He hopes his research will result in the state-sanctioned sale of fugu
liver. "A great delicacy; once you eat, you cannot stop," he says. Japan
has forbidden the sale of fugu liver since 1983; before the ban, deaths
of those who overindulged in the liver, or ate it by mistake, numbered
in the hundreds.
If Noguchi succeeds in his efforts, gourmands may have
cause to cheer, though the fish itself, he speculates,
f
may have cause to mourn. "After all," he says,
"a fugu without its poison is like a samurai
without his sword."
Kendo Matsumura, a research biol
ogist at the Yamaguchi Prefectural
Research Institute of Public Health,
discounts Noguchi's deadly diet the-
ory. He says the fugu's toxicity comes
from poison glands beneath its skin.
Some fugu are poisonous, he says,
some aren't, but even experts
can't tell which is which.
Place your bets. Matsumura
has never eaten fugu. "I am
not a gambling man," he
says. However, Noguchi
considers it the ne plus
ultra of fine dining.
When it comes to fugu,
one man's poisson is
another man's poison. *